Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1858-11-27
THANKSGIVING SERMON.
By HENRY WARD BEEcKER.


Old Testament, performed by David and his
servants, upon memorable occasion of the res
toration of Gods long g-exiled Ark to its House
You will observe that have selected the closing
verse of the chapter for a text.
When the public ceremonies of thanksgiving
were done, every man returned to his own house,
and David, the chief man of the nation, its
king, set the example, and returned to bless has
House. The sanctuary and the House, the pub
lie Congregation and the private Household, the
Church and the Family-these were the fea-
lures of that Hebrew Polity, which, acting
through ages, has stamped its influence upon
Western Institutions. For when the Jews had
been torn up, and part of them destroyed, and
the rest scattered like chaf in all the world,
the shadow of their old institutions fell upon
modern days and like the shadow of the Apos-
ties, it has had more power in it than the liv-
ing influence of most institutions which the
world has had
The Greeks have left to the world remnant
and an ideal of art-a language, and not phi
losophy, but motive toward philOsoPhizRg-
but not single Institution. An institution Is
an'organized power, either of ideas OF Of imple-
ments of power l do not remember one that
came from the Greeks.
The Romans-less than the Greeks in Ian
guage, less in philosophizing tendency, less in
art-have left to the world most powerful or
ganized tendencies The Law of the World
Qas had Roman leaven in it.
The Jew and the Roman have left institutions
to the world. The first, institutions based upon
natural instincts the second, based upon ideas
and artificial wants. The Jew organized the
affections the Roman, the civil rights of man
The family is Jewish; the civil law is Roman
Both of these are yet Living Forces. But one
works at the root, the other in the branches.
The one shapes the inward life and substance Of
mems nature the other shapes the outward life
and actions.
Our Puritan ancestors were men of the Old
Testament Dispensation, planted in New Eng
land. They were mighty, but not normal
They were driven by disgust into reaction
against amenities, graces, innocent sports, and
the spirit of art and beauty. No man formed by
a reaction can be normal They were driven
by suffering and persecution clear back of the
New Testament into the Old. And as the Jews
were sometimes driven out of Old Jerusalem
and compelled to hide from their enemies in the
mountains round about, so the Puritan was
driven out of the New Jerusalem of Gospel and
compelled to find rest and refuge in the more
rugged passes of the Old Testament The Old
Testament was Child of Storms. 1t was the
gradual product of times of suffering and wrong.
1t contains the views of truth which peculiarly
sustain man under such influences. The views
of God the exhibition of Divine Justice the
whole revelation of Providence, are such as to
comfort men who are stripped by misfortune
and failed by persecution. And, in every age,
men who are deeply religious, and called to sui
fer persecution for moral principle, have taken
refuge i'm those views of God which the Old
Testament gives. And they will continue to
do so till the end of the world. Criticism may
= IL A,rr, 1npJor. El-a
sod double deep-but the moment men are
brought into distress by wrong they will search
it out, and dig it up, and live upon it ! Being
so driven, our Puritan fathers became thorough
" imbued with Old Testament ideas 1t was
fortunate for us that it was SO. There are no
such influences in the world for the formation
Of the Family as the Old Testament influences.
All other institutions were subsidiary to the
Famiy-this was the paramount one. Gus
toms, festivals, worship, ritual, temple-al were
to give way at length-the Family never. And
while these lived they were but the servants of
the Family, and whatever influences came from
the more general and public Hebrew nstitu-
tions ran by the peculiar channels appointed by
God, down into the families, so that the whole
polity of the Hebrews was not a central lake
of Theocracy, fed by all the streams and head
springs of families, but rather reservoir, and
drawing from it. The Government and Church
were made for the family, and not the family
for Government or Church. When David and
the people had finished the public service of
Thanksgiving they went to their houses That
was the right place to 90 to. Whatever man
gets in the sanctuary he should store up in the
House
In the beginning the Thanksgiving Festival
of New England was festival for harvests-a
festival of in-gathering. 1t told the history of
the year. Its meaning, in the meeting house,
was expressive of Joy and gratitude for the
wears fidelity to its laws and the applications of
them to human wants by human skill and in
dustry.
On such day one might go back to the
first burrows of Spring; to the birds swarmiag
after the plowman and seedman; to the tender
lifting up of the willing earth by the seeds first
peeping up to see if it was time to wake up
and grow. We look back through long files of
Summer days, whose gittering rays were
brighter with heat and sunlight than all the
lances of an armed host. Warm rains patter
on the roof of our memory; we see the black
belied cloud; We hear the voice of thunder
which is the only sound that dare represent the
voice of God, except the ocean when it breaks
upon the shore We look back and smell the
orchards, and see the yellow harvest field. We
near the CreaBlDg Ol NASelS, ds lu6 NdAilS
bear home the grain fleece of the earth Stand
ing in the month of November, which is the
porch of Winter, we look back through ruddy |
boughs and god-ranks of multitudnous har-
vests, into the open bosom of Summer and into |
the very eyes of Spring, and lifting up our1
hearts we thank God for furrow and seed, for |
grass and flower, for corn and fruit for rain and |
dew, for light and darkness, and for the whole |
mystery of that sublime year, through whose /
evolutions God brings forth all the treasures of
our outward life
But though this day is and was day of Har-
vest Thanksgiving, the peculiar Anglo Saxon,
Hebrew, Puritan spirit has covered 1t over with
another feeling. The whole abundance of the
year is but Gods offering of love to the Family.
The Household is the grand center. And fruit
and grain, wool and fax, root and seed, all take
their value from what they can do for the Fam
ily.
The plow doth not serve the field, but the
owner 1t is the right hand of the farmer-fami-
ly The scythe and the sickle are but the fin
gers of the household cutting the locks from
the head of the year And what thing is done,
on the farm, in the shop, along the street, but
is done to the Family? Only the navy and the
army do not work for families. They are un-
They are not institutions founded on
natural instincts, but organized medicines to
De administered TO the diseases OF natural IN
stinct But the merchant runs not through an
itch of gold alone-it is the family behind him
that works more than mere love of money. 1t
is not the love of work or skill that drives up
the shop-it is the love of wife and child and
the holy sanciities of the Roof Ii
Hence Thanksgiving has its heart in the
Family. We go first to Church. But then,
like the people and like King David, we go
back TO our house. And on that day there
was not Hebrew who, once within his own
door, did not feel every inch as great as King
David. He was as great. The King of Israel
was nothing but father and husband in his
own family. King was less than Father, and
-a1 l,T+ tfaE /