The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1869-12-01

4 Thanksgiving Sermon delirered in Fort Street
Ctmch Honolulu, Nov. 18Th, 1863, By REV.
R. B. SNowDEN.
Psalm lis 10 20. "0pen to me the gates Of right
eousness; will go into them and will praise the
Lord. This gate Of the Lord into which the right
shall enter"
The world is growing better. 1 thank
God for this, and that you all may fully share
the grateful feeling, mean, in the halfhour
you lend me on this day of general praise,
to prove and illustrate the proposition.
know that many hold and express a con-
trary opinion. And it is not at all strange
that they should, for so great is the immoral
ity, skepticism, and irrelgion OF the times,
that one quite readily runs to the conclusion
/ that the world is becoming worse and worse,
or, as a friend Of mine once expressed it:
"The race is devil-ridden and hell mt"
/ If we look only in one direction, We see
| frightful depths of suffering and want in our
/ large cities, fierce animal excitements gross
tastes, unnatural vices aud crimes, the cast
I ing off of sacred restraints, treason against
law and order, adulteries and shameful di
vorces, forgeries and robbery, murder, drunk
/ enness, blasphemy, and vileness unspeakable
/ We are startled by shocking iniquities, which
uncover depths of depravity far lower than
we have thought could possibly be reached.
/ The very fountains of life seem to be poison
ed; whole races dying out; civilization
running TO ieticide, suicide, impurity, phys
! ical and moral decay. Standing aghast at
such awful horrors, We say, Surely, the times
have brought us TO the very carnival of
crime. Nothing in the world was ever so
bad as this.
But we are mistaken. This dreadful wick
cdness, repulsive as it seems, is loveliness
compared with what prevailed in the ancient
world. The classic writers of Greece and
Rome have framed for us windows through
| which We may look in and see the fostering
rottenness of those learned, civilized nations.
The deciphered hieroglyphs of Assyria and
Egypt tell the same tale of shame. God
| buried Herculaneum and Pompeii for sixteen
centuries in deep grave of lava, and then
let men come and uncover those charnel-
houses, that they might learn how entirely
/ right was that terrible vengeance of His
which swept away all the glory, the arts,
luxury, and learning of the grandest Empire
the world ever saw, with His great tidal
wave of Gothic barbarism.
Then, things were done every day without
a protest which the world would not now
suffer to be done at ALL Then, the pleasures
of the populace were fearfully cruel and
bloody. Remembering that, in our day, we
have not confined ourselves TO protecting
human beings from wrong, but have laws
and societies in all parts of Chrstendom to
prevent cruelty even to Misunderstanding this
fact in mind, conceive yourself, on pleasant
afternoon, in old Imperial Rome, hurrying
along with the throng to the Coliseum,
where gather, in gallery upon gallery, the
nobility and populace of the great city-the
Emperor and princes, the senators, knights,
| tradesmen and rabble-a vast assem5lage
eighty thousand in number Soon the trained
| gladiators come out into the arena far below
you, and contend, not in sham encounter
but in savage earnest, for the fearful stake
|
One falls, faint and wounded: shall he die,
| He is brother-man; his heart throbs with
the same red blood as yours. He has wife
and family, perhaps, in some far-off town.
He is guilty of no crime Shall he dies
Give answer quick, o thou misnamed Father
of thy people, sitting on throne; say, at
once, Y laughing crowds, for his antagonist
waits for your commands. Down go the
thumbs, and he is dispatched with a thrust
of his fellow -gladiator's sword, and the hun
cry masses, their appetite for blood quick
ened, clamor for ranotherEictiml Could such
things be done now?
Do you hear those roarings? They come from
beasts,-tigers wild from the jungles of Asia;
lions that lately roamed the deserts of Nu-
midia. They have had no food for days.
Here comes their prey, this old man,
hated Christian, whose gray hairs and trem-
bling limbs give point to many joke and
| jibe among the careless multitude, and, Ali
this daughter, so young and lovely, clinging
to the old mans hand. VIII she not excite
compassion in those hearts of stone? 1t may
possibly be so; but mo- The iron barriers
are taken away; the fierce beasts, with a
single bound, are in the arena, and the great
crowds are eager for the issue-tier above
tier, rising in their seats, and pressing for
ward to see. And while helpless shrieks,
mangled limbs and death-agonies make a
picture that the mob study with relish, the
sun shines down aslant through the roofiess
temple, like the eye of God searching the
depths Of sin. Would the world now stand
such scenes as those?
thank God for the times we live in, not as
an absolute good--far from it-bnt as better
than any period of the past, and full of fpromise
that better days still are drawing on.
l. The present is an era of wide views.
There has been disenthrallment of the mind,
along with the march of freedom in other
quarters. Old notions, not founded in reason
and right, are exploded; institutions which
have served their day, but are worn out and
useless, however much the ages have hallow-
ed them, are swept away out of sight, as so
much rubbish The signs are favorable for
liberty throughoutthe world. The old forms
of government must give way; names may
be retained. but the power is getting into
the hands of the people, which is like the
settlement of suit in chancery, in way
they are reported to be seldom settled by
the actual distribution of the property among
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