(SiM^ 'i:>-^rtUu^r)t ^¦i.,i.... - , ft L«l»lHjii^&; T H A]S[K S G I Y I NG AND THANK-OFFEEINGS __ ns-f anhgiHng anb C|anli-offerings. s E unyi: o N^ ON THANKSGIYIISFG DAY. 18 5 7, BY GEORGE W. BETHIJNE, D. D., (It MINISTER OF THE EEFORMED DUTCH CHURCH ON THE HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN. (Fnbllsbed by deeire of the Con^res&tlon.) NEW YORK: PRESS OF THE BOARD OF PUBLICATION OF THE R. P. DUTCH CHURCH. Synod's Booms, No. 337 Broadway. HOSFOED i CO., STATIONEKS AND PEIKTEBS, NEW YORK. Hebrews xiii. 15, 16. " By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to HIS NAME. But to do good, and to communicate, foeget not; for ¦WITH such sacrifices God is well pleased." S E E M 0 N . The custom of an annual thanksgiving is so rea sonable a tribute to the divinity of Providence, that it has the highest antiquity and an almost universal observance. Wherever the least ray of traditionary religion has shone, we find men prompted to rejoice with sacrifices and festal rites at the close of their harvest. The North American Indians so celebrate the ripening of their maize; the Islanders of the Pa cific the plenty of their breadfruit; and there is scarcely a tribe of savages that does not shew in one way or another a similar disposition. The harvest home of our European kindred, a charming festival, unhappily left behind by our fathers when they crossed the sea, came down from the old Germanic and older Scandinavian worship. The feasts of Bac chus and Ceres, which were the most popular and jubilant of the religious anniversaries celebrated by the classic nations, may be clearly traced back to the mythology, once prevalent in philosophical Egypt and at this hour perceptible among the obscure mysteries of India, which held up by symbols for the reverence of mortals, the active and passive principles of produc tion, Ceres being none other than mother earth, and Bacchus the Osiris, who represented the divine force pervading nature. Osiris, from the rays about his head and other attributeswithwhichhewas represent ed, was himself none other than the Sun. This carries the superstition back to the earliest doctrines profane history has reached, those of the Chaldaeans, who held that the Earth was eternal and the Sun the residence of divinity. The inspired annals before the Exodus of Israel, are very meagre as to general information; but, from the few hints they allow us, we may, with out rashness, beheve that some religious customs, transmitted from the survivors of the deluge, were incorporated with the liturgy or ritual of the Jews, by divine authority on the mount. The Sabbath was, undoubtedly, one of these, and, from the repeated proofs that the tithe or tenth of all increase was dedi cated to God, we recognise the principle of thank- offerings; and, as religious services are in nearly all cases connected with times, it is at least probable that the tithes of the harvest were presented in cir cumstances of peculiar solemnity at the close of the gathering. Indeed, we can follow the pleasing prac tice up to the very gates of Paradise, where we see Abel, the shepherd, and Cain, the tiller of the earth, each offering of his gains to the Lord; for that of Cain was rejected, not because he brought the fruits of the earth, (which, under the Levitical rule, were acceptable,) but because he did not with them (as the Jews afterward were required to do,) offer blood, the necessary sign of that future expiation, without which all approaches to God are presumption. Thus we behold all nations of the earth, civilized and bar barian, in all ages and under all systems, honoring with sacred thanks and thankful dedications the Source of all their good. The Jews, being under God's peculiar care, had, by divine direction, an annual thanksgiving, not for one day, but eight. It was incorporated with the Feast of Tabernacles, so called from the people dwell ing, while the festival lasted, in booths: "that your generations may know," said the Lord, "that I made Israel to dwell in booths (or tabernacles) when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt;" and it 8 was appointed at the close of the harvest and the vintage, when they were to present with glad solem nities the first-fruits of their agricultural gains. The sacrifices and oblations of every sort (besides the first-fruits) divinely ordered for this, were more nu merous and costly than for either of the other two great solemnities of Israel, and large expenses were required from the worshippers; but these were cheer fully rendered. They called it their greatest feast, employing every allowable device to heighten its pleasures and express their exultation, while they commemorated the goodness of Jehovah in bringing their fathers out of Egyptian bondage, and celebrated the various fertility of the goodly land he had given them to dwell in; — a junction and confiuence of mo tives to gratitude, from the past and the present, happily pressing on ourselves as we remember the troubles through which God led the fathers of our nation to the firm, I trust, perpetual establishment of our wise system of self-rule, and consider the un exampled harvest that has been reaped from every part of our wide country. Our spiritual Christianity has set us free from onerous forms, but we are the more bound to observe the principle of devout and open gratitude before God for all his gracious benefits; and among the means of cultivating a thankful spirit, the voluntary setting apart of a day at this season of the year to a united and public thanksgiving, is the most obvious, simple, and persuasive. Our political rulers, bless ed be God ! have no authority in religious matters; but we should rejoice that the foremost citizen of our State, respectful of the general wish, and availing himself of his high position, has been ready to lead us in a service so edifying and becoming. The Apostle, as may be seen from the previous reason ing, had in mind the Jewish thanksgiving when he wrote our text, and we cannot do better than adopt his inspired counsel as to our Christian performance of the same duty. Let us then consider: First — The reasons for our thanks: Secondly — The thank-offerings we should render. First: The reasons for our thanks. This is a day of thanksgiving, and the introduction of any other topic, especially such as would distract our minds from its dehghtful purpose, would be in decent, if not profane. The Gospel uses the good ness of God, his merciful kindness in Christ Jesus, as its great argument for repentance; and pious expe rience teaches that in our heaviest trials we derive 1-0 our best comfort from a contemplation of divine love. If we brood gloomily over our troubles, there is no grace promised to keep us from murmuring, re bellion and despair; if, looking up from them, we study the many, multiform and precious proofs of God's favor, the infinite cost of Christ's merits at which it is bestowed upon such sinners as we are, and the eternal joys it is the earnest of to all who penitently receive it from Christ's hand, we shall be so transported with wonder and joy and hope, that we shall be full of praise, leaving no room for repining. The pleasing rapture outlasting its pres ent occasion, and increasing with increasing discov eries, will bear us up higher and higher, until, having consecrated our lives on earth to Him who hath so exceedingly loved us, we shall enter the Heavenly Sanctuary, where the perfection of human hohness and happiness will be found in perpetual gratitude. This will assuredly be the effect with us, if, following the Apostle's direction, we present our thanks, not as heathen, ignorant of the Gospel, or as deists, skeptical of its truth, but as Christians, by Christ, the Saviour of sinners, and the only intercessor for man with God. "By Him," Jesus, who sanctified his people with his own blood, (12 v.) "let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually." 0 dear friends, now as at all times when we approach God, 11 let us keep Jesus between us and the Father, and putting our tributes into his nail-scarred hand, ask him to make them worthy of acceptance. Only as we go to God through Christ, Christ crucified, Christ glo rified, do we know our own unworthiness, and his infinite desert. Out of Christ, our best worship is impiety; in Christ, our poor homage will reach the throne of the Highest, more pleasing than all the odors of Israel on the greatest day of their great est feast. Our first thanks, therefore, are due to God for our holy religion; for his method of mercy through Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son; for his revelation of the Gospel unto us in the Sacred Scriptures; for aU. the opportunities of grace which we so freely en joy, and, especially, for his distinguishing love, if He has given us a personal, practical faith in its precious promises. Never since Christ sent forth his apostles has there been a people endowed with religious ad vantages equal to our own. Here for the first time since the flood, has religion been left free from all trammels of political government, whose favor is even more hurtful than its enmity. My friends, if we be not true Christians, the fault can be only in ourselves; believers in Christ, if we be not eminent for our Christian fidelity, it is because we misuse the best 12 privileges, and the greatest occasions of growth in grace and of doing good in Christ's name. Let us cherish these blessings with earnest, jealous care. Never let us prove our ingratitude bydenyingfreedom of conscience to others, or presumptuously jeopard them by thrusting the Church into the sphere of the State. Our religion has the most power, when, reject ing all aid from law, she relies for success only on her exposition of divine truth, her examples of godly, hu mane virtues, and the grace of the Holy Ghost sent through the truth into the hearts of men. Brethren, if I seem strenuous on this point, believe me, it is not that I fear man, but because I fear God. Our only strength is in his blessing, and that blessing is with us only so long as ' ' the weapons of our warfare are not carnal." Had any other policy been intend ed for us, it would have been prescribed and exem plified by our divine Exemplar and his inspired apostles; but from them we learn that our only sword is the word of God; our only shield, faith and righteous ness; our only aggression, a gentle mercy; our only conquest, over the heart; our only reward, a share in the joy of our Lord the Saviour of sinners. Woe ! woe to our Israel, when like Hophni and Phinehas, the servants of the sanctuary take the ark of the Lord from Shiloh, and carry it out into the profane din and revengeful enmities and brutal hurly-bur- 13 ly of popular strife. There may be loud, boastful shouts in the beginning of that day; but, in the even ing, a long, wailing shriek will ring through the dwell ings of the chosen ; "Ichabod! the glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken !" We must not forget to give thanks, because of their commonness, for the favors with which God has hon ored our human life, our several senses, our faculty of speech, our minds capable of receiving his instruc tions, our hearts whose affections should unite us to our fellows, and elevate us to himself. In the afflic tions which sometimes come upon us, and have, dur ing the past year, come upon not a few, through these channels of creating goodness, we should see how great is His ordinary kindness, and how depen dent we are for His constant care. Indeed we may say that next to the blessings which religion links to our immortality, there are none so deserving of our hearty gratitude as those which, like the air we breathe, are about us at all times, too seldom thought of, never sufficiently prized. But, grateful as is the pleasure of recounting the bounties of God, we must arrest ourselves, for eter nity would be " too short to utter all the praise;" and, on this special day, employ the remainder of our little 14 time, as directed by the proclamation of our worthy Chief Magistrate, in recording our more uncommon favors. Foremost among these is the inestimable privilege of living under such a constitution of civil govern ment, which God, notwithstanding great unfaithful ness on our part, happily preserves. In times of party excitement, or of financial distress, we are tempted to fret against its wholesome restraints, or to lament the limitations, as wisely, set to its power. We see then, as we suppose, some desirable things which we cannot have under a constitutional govern ment of the people, and some other things, undeniably evil, which are inseparable, so long as human nature is what it is, from such a system. But, before we dis honor the patriotism and foresight of our fathers, let us settle in our minds what other civil economy could secure us greater good with a less admixture of bad. Should we be safer under the rule of one man, or of a few men ? If so, how or whence is the one or the few to derive their authority ? History and the pres ent cotemporaneous condition of nations so gov erned, will throw much hght on these questions. Let us, also, look fairly at the system we have, and see, as we certainly shall, that our laws, by their privi leges, checks, and balances, put the happiness of the 15 people into the hands of the people themselves, so that if they are not safe, it is their own crime. From the primary assembly the voices of the people go up through successive siftings and responsibilities to the highest enunciations of the popular will. But, under such a system, we cannot expect privileges without performing our duties; and those duties in clude not merely obedience to laws, but, also, the making of them. If intelligent and otherwise con scientious citizens, are too much absorbed in their own affairs, or too indolent, or too careful of their persons to mingle in the assemblies of the people or bear their part in the pubhc service, and, thus, the reins of government get into the hands of bullies and dem agogues and traders for office, the crime is not in our system, but in the unfaithfulness of those who most complain of it. If you wish to prevent evil, you must stand by the fountain head, and see to it, so far as in you lies, that the first issues are pure. Let me give you an historical fact in illustration of what I say. Democratic liberty, such as we en joy, arose among the free cities of Holland, where the magistrates were originally chosen by open suf frage. But in process of time, that industrious, hon est, and, therefore, confiding people, became weary of frequent elections, and committed the prerogative to 16 a few, who ultimately transmitted it to successors of their own determination, or hereditarily, after the manner of our close corporations, of which, in fact, they were the originators. The plan worked very well for a time, except that the people every now and then arrested evil measures by tumult, which they had given up the right of opposing by law; but, in the end, they lost their consciousness of citizenship so far, that their republic first became an oligarchy, then an aristocracy, and, now for many years, has sunk into a monarchy. The Hollanders were, at least, as capable of self-government as we are, yet they lost it from not watching the right of suffrage, and leav ing others to do what they should have done them selves. I doubt not that there is here and there among us an individual, who, disgusted with the popular wiU, would like to be a dictator or a king, and order every thing after his own judgment, or conscience, as he calls it; but how would he hke to be a subject of such a monarch, not daring to mutter or peep ? There are also, perhaps, a few who would like to be mem bers of an hereditary house of lords, to share with some of his OAvn persuasion the exclusive power of telling the masses what is good for them; but how would these like to be crushed down among those 17 masses, oppressed and impoverished, and, if they thought at all, only puzzled because all seemed "a muddle ?" My good sirs, the very comfort you take in rating the people for their foUies and vices, this "desolate rehef of free complaining," is a luxury you could not have under the strong government you affect to pine after. The pohce spy at your elbow, disguised as your friend, would soon procure you a solitude free from popular annoyance. I am not so blind as not to see many evils and wickednesses in the course of our public affairs, but I believe that they are aU within the reach of a faithful public spirit animating all our citizens; nor do the faults of individuals shake my faith in the principles of our governm,ent, which is so constituted that any material change would be a loss of right, and any revolution, retrograde towards despotism. Better the wildest desert than such an apostacy! Let us not be so timid as to shake at every alarm. At one time, like the excited crew of a gallant bark, our peo ple may rush to this extreme, bringing the repubhc down to her bearings; at another they may rush to that extreme, bringing her down as far on the oppo site side; but the buoyancy and the balance are in her; she rights herself again, and rides safely on, swaying to the fluctuating wave and varying wind, bearing her wealth of treasure to future generations. 18 Should she from any disaster go down, there does not float on aU the dark ocean a single plank of hu man fashioning to rescue a hope of freedom. But the Republic,will not founder. No, God of our fath ers, thou didst hear their prayers; and there are too many of their children who put their trust in thee ! While these abide in the ship she will be saved. We bless thee, 0 God; with full hearts we thank thee for our beloved country, for our government, for our Union, for our unconquerable hope in thee, our only King! The bountiful and preserving care of Providence over us during the year, demands unusual ascriptions of praise. I cannot, as the leader of your devotions, be ignorant or forgetful of the sorrows and anxieties which have pressed sorely upon our community for several months past, nor are yet gone by; and which, like a storm through a forest, wiU leave the ground strewed with many a riven branch and pros trate tree. God will not accept our thanks the less because they rise out of hearts bleeding from their own griefs, or in sympathy with the sufferers. StiU, it were worse than superstition to make God the cause of this, except so far as palpable violation of the laws he has set upon trade has brought its own punishment. Many that were guUtless of intentional 19 wrong, are bowed beneath the general calamity; but, as a people, we have brought it on our own heads. We have loved the intoxication of every ex citement, and stimulated the reckless passion by every kind of indulgence. Prudence has been laughed at as a doting gray-beard behind the age, unworthy to utter a counsel to Young America. ' ' Progress ! prog ress! progress!" has been the cry, to drown the voice of experience. The brake has been cast off from the wheels; if it had been possible, friction would have been voted out of the world as a mistake of the Creator, and conservatism of those truths developed by the disasters of long centuries are ridiculed by states men just breeched from the nursery, and green phi losophers ignorant of any axiom but "Go ahead!" while men, old enough to know better, have lent all their crazy breath to blow up the bladder on which they hoped to swim with the popular torrent. When we look back on the epidemical furors that have raged among our people for the few years past, in politics, in trade, in morals, and even religion, we cannot be surprised that they lost their heads, and that the most absurd speculations and wildest schemes were received as signs of the eminent excellence which -distinguishes this nineteenth century. Credit, the handmaid of Capital, and foster-mother of labo rious skiU, ran away from her mistress, and aban- 20 doned her charge. We professed to build our currency on a solid basis, then quarried out the foundation to sell it abroad ; and exulted in the dis covery that if men would only think that the shadow was as good as the substance, the substance was a superfluous thing. Is it strange that such a vacuum, when external pressure came, or even without the pressure, should be foUowed by a collapse ? But I am wandering beyond my sphere, and may be told that we theorists and book-men are no judges in practical matters. I bow to the repulse, yet cannot help being sorry that your practical men, with aU their boasted experience, have managed to get a country, overflowing with the means of hfe, into such an unaccountable predicament and hubbub. All I wish, is, and that is my business, to vindicate the goodness of God from the charge of having sent a judgment upon us; and to remind you amidst the sad consequences of man's error, that we owe the largest thanks to the Author of aU mercies for our extra ordinary freedom from divine judgments. He has given us a most plentiful harvest, I ques tion his ever having given to any one people, since the world began, such an abundance of breadstufis as he has bestowed on us this year; and when we add to this the other means of life and comforts, our SI fuel, Our precious and other metals, and the various products of Our wide land, making us so independ ent, that if we chose, the whole world besides might be sunk without our feeling a serious inconvenience, we may truly say He hath not dealt so with any other people. Compare our country this day with Ireland a few years since, with any land during a famine, and tell me if it be not preposterous profanity to caU our trouble a judgment ! There has been no pestilence among us. Death, and, of course, sickness, belong to our mortal lot, and natural laws wUl occasion endemic diseases; but there has been no plague in aU the length and breadth of the, land. Compare our country with some portions of it last year, and with larger portions the year , before; nay, go back to that summer twenty -five years since, when the blue death from its mysterious wings shook down on every city and hamlet the fatal poison, and cries of anguish, more terrible than that of Egypt for her first born, went up for long months over beloved ones hurried to the crowded grave. Think of those days, and tell me if God's judgment is upon us ! We have been preserved from war, foreign and intestine. The angry p^sgigris which thre£|,tenec| 22 last year to arm brother against brother, have sub sided into calm. The weak-hearted breathe freely again, and the brave are glad that He who " stUleth the noise of the waves," has, by his mercy overrul ing our iU deserts, hushed " the tumult of the peo ple." When the angry passions of men are excited, the natural impulse, the impulse of an iU nature, is to fight; but the sober, especiaUy the rehgious mind ed, see such dreadful evUs in war, that they regard any amount of patience, at least until every possible means of honorable adjustment be exhausted, prefer able to bringing such' heavy calamities on a people. Our close kindred of Great Britain, a short time since, came out of a bloody struggle in a distant for eign province, but the return of peace left " Many a sweet babe fatherless, And many a widow mourning." We read of hundreds and thousands, sometimes more than the population of a considerable town, slain in a day's fight, and the aggregate number made httle impression on us beyond a passing thrill of horror; but every one of the faUen had some one, probably a household, to mourn him at home ; and there are dark shadows around as many hearths, which will not pass away 'tiU the present generation has ceased to feel the anguish of hving hearts. Yet the sad con-- 23 sequences of that war are hght compared to those of the present revolt in her Indian Territory. No page of modern history, scarcely any of ancient, has a record of such atrocities. I wiU not harrow up your souls by farther allusion to them, but must insist on your seeing how far civil exceeds foreign warfare in cruelty and outrage; and how much far ther the uprising of semi-civUized and brutal ser vants against their masters, justly or unjustly, ex ceeds aU other fury. There are, undeniably, in our own country, elements which, if stirred to action, would produce a war at once fratricidal and servile, that in devastation, outrage, slaughter, and duration, would be without a parallel in all time. Should any unhappy or criminal measures bring about such hostilities, from the character of the combatants and the physical nature of the country, I verily believe they would not cease till some of the fairest portions of our land were a howling wilderness. If it be said that such a judgment is deserved, we answer that we all deserve the damnation of heU; but may we not ask the God of mercy, who opened for us a way of escape from eternal death by the death of His Son, and who, in his Gospel, patiently waits for our re pentance, to spare us from his awful vengeance, and, by the power of his Holy Spirit through that same Gospel of the Crucified, to take away t}\e §jn, and u bring all, the wronged and the oppressor, within the same covenant of peace which received the mur derers of Jesus among the children of the merciful ! Such at least should be the spirit of all that claim to be followers of him who "came not to destroy men's lives, but to save." To-day we have to thank God for the blessing of peace. For this let our praises be high and unanimously accordant; but let us min gle with our haUelujahs, confessions of our iU desert, and earnest prayers that the blessing may be per petual, and the fruit of righteousness so "sown in place of them that make peace," as to bring: forth an unblernished harvest of glory to him whose mis-, sion from God to us was " peace on earth, good wiU toward men." Secondly: Now, dear friends, if these remembran ces and considerations of God's great kindness to us have stirred us up to a pious gratitude, it will not be idle, but ask some method of testifying its sincerity. " What shaU we render unto the Lord for aU his ben efits ?" What are the thank-offerings with which we should come before the Lord ? If we were Israelites of the old covenant, and this one of the days devoted to their annual thanksgiving, we should hear on every side the; cppapl£^int? of imio- 25 cent victims from the herd and the flock dragged to their death. These sacred places would be stream ing with blood. Rivers of oil and wine would be poured forth in libations, and large measures from the fatness of the field consecrated amidst clouds of odor ous frankincense, to the Author and Giver of all, whose are all things. But those bloody, burden some rites are not for us, the children of a better covenant. Victims have been slain, and bountiful libations provided, yet the smoke goes up from our kitchen chimneys, and the rich provision will crown our household tables. Our temple service demands no life, for the Lamb of God has poured forth his own blood, and now is in the midst of the throne our High Priest, pleading for us His own merits, and always heard in the things He asks for his people. Our offerings are no longer typical, but in faith — in form, but of the heart. The Apostle has reasoned through this whole Epistle to demonstrate for us our Chris tian liberty, and now hear him : " Let us offer the sacrifices of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips." We come not to buy pardon with costly oblations, but to praise Him for having done all for us out of the riches of his mercy in Christ Jesus. We come not to do penance, but to give thanks. Christian worshippers, lift up your hearts; lift up your voices ! Tell to the world the source of 26 aU your blessings ! Repeat the praise with glowing hps as it rises from your ardent hearts. Praise God ! Laud, bless, and magnify His glori ous power ! Praise him for his Only Begotten, our Lord, our Saviour, with whom also, and for whose sake he freely gives us aU things ! Praise him for the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, through whose grace we know whom we have believed, and cry with affec tionate joy. Our Father, our God ! Praise him for his holy word ! his holy law ! his holy Gospel ! his holy Providence ! his holy Church ! his holy heaven ! " Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God! who cover eth the heaven with clouds; who prepareth rain for the earth; who maketh grass to grow upon the moun tains. Praise the Lord, 0, Jerusalem; praise thy God, 0, Zion; for he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy chUdren within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders; he fiUeth thee with the finest of the wheat. He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord !" Thus let us, for at least this pleasant day, forget the troubles of the world in the bounties of our God. But, dear friends, our text bids us not to forget 2T another sacrifice of thanksgiving, with which God is well pleased, and without which the praises of our lips are no better than the devotion of a hypocrite. God is not content with giving us the name of his children; he would have us hke himself, the giver of good. He is not content with bestowing on us his bounty; but puts into our hands the means of imi tating his loving kindness and tender mercy. "To do good, and to communicate, forget not." This is what he never forgets to do. He is ever communi cating from his riches to the creatures of his hand. It is his glory, his blessedness to give; to give, for Christ's sake, not to the righteous only, but to the unworthy and the sinner, such as we are; and he caUs us to the high privilege of sharing with him his glory and blessedness, the glory of doing good, the blessedness of communicating. Ah, dear friends, if ever there could be a time when, more than at another, we should not forget this excellence of our duty, this is it. All the while that, as a preacher of thanksgiving, I have been ex horting to put away sorrow from our souls and think only of praise, my heart has been dragging me down with sympathy for the many troubles you could not help but bring with you even to the sanctuary of God. Now, we cannot forget the troubles that are 28 aU around us. I hear the cry of the poor, who, till yesterday, knew not of want; the cry of the mother, to whose imploring hands the golden harvest has sent no bread; the cry of famishing children at their helpless parent's knee; the cry of the strong man, the bread-winner of his household, who wrings his toil-worn hands in agony, because there is no toil for them; the cry of the young girl, tempted by famine to shame; the cry of the stranger, who, like Christ, has not where to lay his head; the cry, the most piercing of aU that reaches the heart of humanity, of woman, when her hour is come, and there is no comfort, no cordial near her miserable bed. You cannot shut out these voices of anguish; they reach us here; they come through our windows; they echo along our streets; they go up to the ears of our God, and meet and mingle with our prayers and our thanks about the throne of grace ; and an answer comes down to us in the sweet accents of the Great Sufferer: "To do good, and to communicate, forget not; for with such sacrifices I am well pleased." Blessed Jesus, Hope of our souls, Bread of life, Rock of living waters, how often have we asked how we might please thee ? Here hast thou told us. _ Take them, faithful Saviour, into thy wounded hands, take our gifts, sprinkle them '^itli thy bloodj owu tjieift fpr th;^ raercy's sake. Ah 1 29 glorified Son of Man, thou needest them not ! Thou art hungry no more, thou art thirsty no more ! Thou art sick, and a stranger, and a prisoner no more ! Thou does not need to sit weary on the well and wait for food ! Thou wilt not come into our homes as thou .didst to the house in Bethany, that we may spread a table before thee, and wash thy feet with our tears, and anoint them with perfume ! We can not stretch up our hands to heaven; our goodness extendeth not to thee ! But we know how we can please thee, for we hear the cry of the poor, and re member that thou hast said: " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me." On other thanksgiving days it has been a pleasant fancy to picture you in your happy dweUings, mak ing merry and being glad; but now there comes be tween a vision of the long, hard, cold winter; the desolate dwellings of the poor; their shivering babes; their cheerless nights; their hopeless morrows. 0, what are they to do if God open not our hearts to keep them ! I know that the means of many are stinted; yet give of what you. have. Hitherto ye have given from your abundance, and your charity cost little more than an impulse. Now God puts it to a stronger test. Brethren, let us economize every- 30 where but in those acts of goodness with which God is weU pleased. You who have stood firm amidst the surrounding downfaUs, thank God, and render your large thank-offerings, and like a noble tree gather the weak under your wide shadow. Forget not, whatever you forget else, to do good and com municate. Forget it not, or the God you profess to thank this day, wiU forget you. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 03283 5697 Iifl\'. H?