The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1868-11-28
wALNuM STREET CHURCH.


tendance was not as large as we had
expected. The services were pecu-
liarly interesting and edifying. The
exercises we're preluded by the
Thanksgiving anthem, sung in the
Praise the Great Jehovah,
Praise the Lord of the harvest
Who hath covered the earth
With His goodness"
The opening prayer, by Rev. G. B.
Martin, breathed a sincere confes-
sion of sins, an humble acknowledge
ment of Gods manifold blessings and
al earnest thanksgiving for the loving
kindness and tender mercies which
have followed US as individuals. as a
city, State, and nation during the
past year, humble invocation that
the same blessings may crown cur
lives during the coming year. The
Scriptural lesson was the 104th Psalm,
Bless the Lord o my soul, &c.
The Thanksgiving Sermon was
preached by Rev. j. P. r. Kumler
from the first verse of the ninety
fifth Psalm, 20, come, let Us sing
unto the Lord, &c"
ut becomes us to make mention of
the manifold blessings and mercles
with which our lives have been con-
tinually crowned, and especially the
common blessings which we are so
prone to lose sight of from their very
| frequency"
After enumerating many of the
commoner blessings, such as the pres
ervation of our lives day by day,
health. physical and social COM
forts, our reason, our regulations,
preservation from famine, war,
and pestilence, the preservation of
our intellectual and religious
institutions = our churches, school
houses, and seminaries of learning
and such like blessings, the speaker
alluded to the present condition and
future prospects Of our country. :"
1t was a cause for thankfulness that
our country still lives, and the last
year has given US new assurance that
it shall continue to live. The problem
of self-government was not settled
when the war ended, nor is it indeed
fully settled yet, but the assurance
that it shall be settled has been made
doubly sure. After the rebel armies
had been disbanded, there arose the
equally difficult and dangerous ques-
ton of reconstruction, which had
taxed more than any other question
that has arisen, in the history Of our
country, the mental powers and states
manship Of the nation. Whether we
had sufficient talent aud sufficient
power of far-reachiDg diplomacy to
grasp and settle the great questions
growing out of the war, and whether
we would be able to so adjust them as
to secure full and lasting peace suit
ed to the new arrangements and con-
ditions of the country, was a question
of deep public solicitude.
Our greatest statesmen trembled for
the issue. Foreign powers referred to
the past history of other Republics,
and confidently predicted our failure,
| and even if the rulers of the mon
arches and hereditary sovereignties
were disappointed in conquering the
rebellion, they still anticipated fail
ure in restoring harmony and giving
permanency to the Republic. The
| Quarterly ReUielo declared it to be a
chimera The Edinburgh ReUtea0
said it was impossible. Thes North
British ReUie10 stigmatized it as an in :
sane ambition. One of EngIand's jour
nalists tauntingly wrote: " If the Gov
ernmentshould succeed in re- annexing
the Confederate States and restoring
the Federal Union, Democracy will
have achieved its grandest triumph
since the world begun. All that its
worshipers for fifty years have said
and sung would be but dull prose to
the poems that will henceforth as
cend to its praise. Now, though the
work of reconstruction has not been
fully accomplished, yet recent events
give US strong assurance that it soon
will be.
[ think we can see in the temper
and purpose of the public mind that
it is in a good way of being gained.
The ready acqujesence of defeated
minority in the will of the majority,
constitutionally expressed, is such an
exhibition of constitutional morality
as gives US confidence that peaceful
reconstruction will be effected.
After abiding to the recent politi-
cal campaign-the most bitterly and
closely contested in our history-it
was a cause for thanksgiving that, in
twenty-four hours after the close of
the contest which proclaimed the tri-
umph of one party and the defeat
of the other, all became as quiet
as though the election had taken
place years ago. Democrats and Re-
publicans alike had declared that the
popular will, constitutionally ex-
pressed, must be respected; and we
see in this ready acquiescence the
omens of returning harmony and fra
ternal feeling throughout the whole
land.
God has willed that we shall live
and not die. He had not given us the
broad continent, set in its framework
of two continents, and hung up as an
example before the world, with its
great network of railroads and tele-
graph lines. with its wonderful devel-
opment of unequaled resources. that
it might only die. He meant that we
should live to develope purer liberty
and higher civilization. He painted,
with eloquent beauty, the future
mission Of these States, as further
cause for thanksgiving-with a re-
stored traternal feeling all over the
land, with peace in all our border
when with one hand on the Bible,
and the other on the Constitution
with the Star Spangled Banner over
our heads and the Cross of Christ
before our eyes, we will swear new
allegiance to the new Republic, and
our motto still shall be, este perpetua. .
ST. PAUL's CHURCH.
The services at Saint Paups
Church were as usual on Thanks
giving days. The sermon was
preached by Rev. Van Antwerp from
the following text: Hebrews, vi.