It is with mingled feelings we must say it, but in the skill, the daring, the bearing, the self-denial of our foes, there are elements which adorn the American character. The nation is greater than we thought, now that its weakest part has proved itself so strong. We find this out now to our sorrow. If the need should ever come we may profit by the discovery. We ought not to forget, my friends,-we who are gathered here, that we have been permitted to share in the toils and the glories of these times. Let us be thankful that on many a well-fought field we have been honorably represented. And, chiefly, that one whom we proudly call our neighbor and brother, who is wont to bend with us at the throne of grace, and to worship with us in this house of the Lord, who sanctifies his patriotism with his religion, and openly serves his God while bravely he serves his country, bears in the hearts of his grateful countrymen a name which the land delights to honor. I hold it cause for thanksgiving that he, and others of a kindred spirit, are numbered among ourselves. If your hearts beat quicker at the thought of them, Thanks be unto God! And this is not all. While much has been done on every hand for the temporal and spiritual good of those composing our armies, perhaps no other New England town has come so much as our own in contact with the men themselves. Besides all that we have gladly done for those away from us, we have been called to render an unceasing service to those among ourselves. Men have come from their homes to us, and received our bounty, as they had need. They have come from the camp and the battle, worn, wounded, sick, to be blessed with our gentle ministries. We can never forget that long, long winter, when thousands of devoted men shivered in tents among our snows; when hundreds were stretched on beds of pain in our hospitals and homes, and scores took their discharge out of the hand of death. It is good to remember that we ministered to them. I say we I mean you, women, mothers, sisters, whose hands never tired, whose feet never grew weary, whose hearts never grew cold; on whom rests the blessing of many among the living, perchance of many among the dead. Such heavenly deeds have been constantly repeated ever since; and so will they be till this desolating war has ended. England's maiden no longer stands alone: nor need we cross the sea to find "a noble type of good, heroic womanhood." And is there not in these varied considerations something to make our Marah sweet? III. But we still find reason for thanksgiving, if, finally, we turn to the future now opening before us. The result of this terrible struggle will be seen in a stronger and better nation. I base this upon my confident expectation of our success. A stronger nation! The States composing the Union, differing in some respects one from another, and having certain separate interests, will be bound more closely together than before. The hands which now are cemented with blood will not be easily sundered. The East has suffered with the West; the West has triumphed with the East. We are learning the need of mutual support, and finding out the strength that comes from a union of counsels and of efforts. It was a deadly deficiency in the old republics which made up Greece and Italy, that they had no sympathy with one another, but had interests and feelings almost entirely distinct, with the consequent jealousies and strifes. Hence they could not unite against a common enemy. Athens, Lacedæmon, Thebes, were too antagonistic to band together, and Greece was forced to yield to Macedon and Rome. "Many of the most enlightened Italians, the best patriots of our time," says Guizot, "regret that their country has not passed through a despotic centralization, which would have formed it into a nation, and have rendered it independent of foreigners." We reach, or rather promote, this result, through the centralizing influence, not of despotism, but of a contest for the maintenance of our common national life. Should the need ever arise-which may God avert―-we shall oppose a bolder front and a stouter arm to the invader; and without that, shall be stronger for the happier pursuits of peace. Add to this, as of yet greater moment, the stronger union between the North and the South which is to result. The evils of dissolution were long threatened; jealousies were strong; enmities were rife; the ties that bound us were accounted weak, and easily severed. They who have attempted to sever them are learning that it is a thing not to be done. It will be long before the survivors of these days, or their children, try again to put asunder what God has joined together. The hatred which now exists is not immortal. The Lethean waters of time will sooner or later dissolve it. We must deal generously with a conquered foe, and the coals of fire will be heaped upon his head. We shall come out of this struggle, too, with juster and higher views of what a nation is, and what a government is, and what laws are. The obligation of the citizen will be understood as never before; the claims of the State will bear a more sacred authority. Patriotism has ceased to be a word, and has passed into a thing of life, and every kindred word has been in like manner vitalized. The diversion of the varied branches of industry into a national channel is but an outward expression of the changed direction of our thoughts. We have been sneered at for our devotion to Mammon, but the foot of Columbia is on Mammon's neck, and all the people say Amen. We have been called braggarts and esteemed dependants. We have been inclined to boast, but we have more than proved our right to boast; and to all we have said for ourselves through ships, and yachts, and reaping machines, and telegraphs, we have added the enunciation of great truths in political and national economy, and are demonstrating the strength of a republic. And we care more for this than for material triumphs. We are different in the very subject of our thoughts, in the topics of our conversation, in the very estimate of our possessions, and we stand before the world with a new and exalted majesty. Give us the victory now, and henceforth the historic muse will linger the longest over the story of these United States. We shall come forth with a truer estimate of our homes, and peaceful pursuits. Home should be dearer than ever now that blood is on its threshold. We should think as we gather around the fireside on Thanksgiving day, year by year, that a new price has been paid for our homes, and that a new sacredness belongs to them. More than ever should we strive to have them the abodes of peace, sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. So when we go the round of our daily duties, we ought to remember the toil and agony and blood which have been paid for our prosperity. We shall come forth a better land. In this elevation of our thoughts we shall be better; in the throwing off of our sins we shall grow purer-if we throw them off. We are to feel the demoralization of war for a time, without doubt, yet this will pass away; and meantime we can oppose to it the more earnest endeavor to uphold and inculcate virtue and religion. Goodness will not come as naturally as some other gains, but it can be brought. It will be a vast improvement, too, to come from this contest with different views and purposes regarding the system of slavery from which we have suffered so much. We have not reached the end. The whole matter is beset with difficulties. We are forced to walk now step by step, and to study the unfolding of God's design. But some thousands are actually at liberty who were in bondage. And what is of greater importance is, that the obligation to silence and neglect, so far as it ever existed, is now taken off. We are free. We are more than free. We are forced to look the evil in the face, and to devise a remedy for it. And, moreover, the conscience and heart of the North have moved and will never go back. With patience, and prayer, and wisdom, and kindness, the relation of these millions of bondmen to us is to be forever changed and definitely settled. We cannot tell when the result will be made complete. It may not be speedily accomplished. Perhaps not. But the beginning of the end has come. And in connection with all this future will be firmer trust in God, and a more earnest desire to do his will. Our hearts responded to the words of the President, "No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things." Feeling this, shall we not lay aside our weapons of war with a new gratitude and devotion, desiring to live for him who has done so 'great things for us, whereof we are glad?" And shall we not be more eager to send the knowledge of him through our own and every land, till his kingdom shall come? And gathering up these hints of the future, can we not render devout thanksgiving, even to-day? And now, Brethren, as we go out with these duties and hopes, let us keep before us the familiar principle, which is finding fresh illustration, that the great rewards of life come after its great toils. * The onward steps of humanity are upward steps. The track of the Bible is marked with stakes and racks and dungeons and swords. It took many a cruel death to teach men that "the just shall live by faith," and not by penance and indulgence. Nay, it comes closer to us, for the sublimest truths we make our own are bought by us with a price. It is easy to gain the conviction of the understanding, but it is not by figures on a slate that one gets the fire of truth into his bones. The best symbol for the struggle is not Our Lord on the Mount of the Beatitudes, but Our Lord on that other mount, where, under the early night, and amid the rending veil and quaking earth and rising dead, with his hands and feet and side and brow flowing with blood, his own words reached their fulfilment, "I am the truth." It was the chiefest of the apostles who took the truth into his heart and said "I am crucified with Christ." When Robes The history of our civil birthright is a history of toil and endurance. It begins with Columbus, begging in his poverty at the convent gate, knocking in vain at palace doors, resisting a mutinous crew, returning to Spain in chains, and dying with a broken heart. It holds the story of our pilgrim sires, in England, Holland, on the sea, amid the rigors of winter, beset with wild savages, and a wilder wilderness. It passes to the weary years of the Revolution, when you could track the march of our armies by bloody foot prints. We are writing new chapters 'now, with pictures of battle-fields, and hospitals, and prisons, and graves. We may not shrink from the work. We are writing prophecy more than history, for these are not wasted agonies. pierre was dead, some one wrote this epitaph: Passenger, lament not his fate, for were he living, thou wouldst be dead." Pardon all but the words. We would not blot out the record of our fathers' fortitude; we have gained too much from it. Let us write the record of our own for the coming generations to read with thankfulness. We are learning more and more of the value of such sires as ours. They were needed for those early days; stern times demanded stern men; and we need the inheritance of patriotism and courage and endurance which has come down to us. Stoughton was right: "God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness." Be it ours to accept the trust which is now placed in our hands. What would life be worth, if our dreams were to be haunted with the spectral forms of heroes crying "" Shame! What your fathers died to give you you were too weak to keep!" Be it ours to welcome our task; to lay ourselves where they laid themselves, on the altar of our country and our God; to fill our place in the successive generations which are building up on these western shores a nation for the Lord. If we can recognize our work, and manfully address ourselves to it, this can be, in spirit and in truth, Thanksgiving Day. Our fathers kept it when the skies were darker than now. Their trust was firm in more perilous times. We must remember them when we gather at our sumptuous feasts. "Neither bread nor |