XIV.

THE BROKEN IN HEART HEALED: THE STARS NUMBERED

AND NAMED.

A THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE.

"He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.' - Psalm 147: 3, 4.

ITH New England people the histories of

WITH

the Annual Thansgiving days from childhood would be a good epitome of life. No recollections of childhood and youth are more vivid. The weeks of vacation, of visits paid or received, the excursions and sports, the preparations for the feast assailing every sense, the rich joy afforded by being sent on errands of love to the needy, the visits to the market-places where nature seemed to have brought together her stores as though for some great sacrifice, the throng of people and vehicles in the streets, showing that some great movement was going on, (245)

the innocent satisfaction of being employed,

"Something between a hindrance and a help,"

to do a little service the evening before the important day, the careful observance of the weather signs, the necessity of being detained from meeting by pressing need of your service at home, or for errands, or if you went to church, the demonstration in the singing seats, the pleasures of a good conscience in being in the house of God and not at the games on the Common, and the satisfaction in hearing something from the pulpit which was not so admonitory as usual, and then the grand climax around the table where feasting and merriment were succeeded by the household games till tired nature welcomed forgetfulness in sleep, all combined to make Thanksgiving Day to many of you as full of true enjoyment as probably any festival of any kind, in any nation, in any age of the world.

So you grew up, and each returning Thanksgiving was better than the last, and was heightened by the return of one and another who had gone out from the homestead. Then the little high chairs, long disused were brought down from the attic, with the forgotten cradle for one who like a diamond added to a full dress, was last, and least, and best.

We loved to hear the minister read some of

those five or six concluding Psalms, in which every imaginary thing is called upon to praise God, and which blazing forth with joy and thanksgiving, seemed like the last piece in the exhibition of fireworks on the other great festival of the year when the heavens were ablaze with the closing outburst of the demonstration. Perhaps never in childhood and youth was there more enjoyment crowded into the same space. And so, from year to year, the keen sense of pleasure grew more intense, being helped by memory and anticipation.

As we became older we were less turbulent in our joy; the duties and responsibilities of life looked in upon us, one by one, with serious face. Then came the first great sorrow, and at the festival there was a vacant chair, and you began to wonder why you ever thought Thanksgiving Day the best in the year.

Some of the family were far off and could not. return, and one and another had gone, alas! for us, where thanksgiving had become their ceaseless employment. And when years were multiplied the festival had a large memorial tablet with inscriptions of lost ones, of changes, of sorrows, the recollection of all which, mixed with natural anticipations of thickening troubles, made Thanksgiving season a time of deep religious thought, never more profitable, yet clad in

At the same

russet garb instead of gay colors. time, probably no one who has experienced all this and has made right improvement under it, will fail to testify that such sorrow was better than laughter, or that in the multitude of his thoughts. within him, there are consolations and comforts which he would not exchange for hilarity, not even for the innocent pleasures of his childhood.

Let not the young think by any means that Thanksgiving Day turns into a day of mourning as we grow old; for on the contrary, it may be increasingly a day of deeper, richer joy. We always regret to have the season of blossoms end, and to look on the trees, recently laden with beauty and fragrance, of a sudden changed to a sombre state. But in that change, Spring has taken an exulting step. The trees are more precious than under their flowery crown.

For, as we advance in life, we have an accumulated debt of gratitude for the past, with its ever growing experience of lovingkindness and tender mercy; for capacity of enjoyment, for treasures not lost but laid up for us; for increased qualification to do good and to make others happy; nor can we forget the goodness of God to our childhood: the care taken of us, the friends we had, and special favors of preservation and blessing when we were heedless and

unthankful.

So that when the moons of life wane we must remember that they are hastening to new moons, and that to them who fear God it will be so without end.

It will be safe to say, that amid all the festivity of these occasions, the most enviable happiness will be possessed by some who are reminded by them, of the various dealings of God with them in years past. Perhaps, if we should be called upon by different classes to hear their reasons for thanksgiving, none would be urged more earnestly than the wonderful ways in which the God of all comfort who comforteth them that are cast down, has comforted many who were in tribulation. It would seem to us among the wonderful things of God, how He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds.

But what have the stars to do with the broken in heart, or comforts with the number and names of the heavenly bodies?

There is a remarkable conjunction of ideas in the two verses in the text. It seems a very sudden, abrupt transition from one to the other. was it intended to be so? Or was there an association of ideas and a real connection between the thought of divine power in healing broken hearts, and the knowledge and ordering of the heavenly bodies?

Without attempting to answer this assuredly,